***Ancestral Currents, 2026***

AIRIE.FOUNDATION AT THE ARMORY SHOW

A special installation inspired by the tree island sanctuaries of the Everglades, the work explores connections between Jamaica and the Greater Everglades through water, ancestral memory, and belonging.

September 24 - 27, 2026

Javits Center, New York.

PLAN YOUR VISIT

THE INSTALLATION

Ancestral Currents

Photo from Ancestral Currents (2026).

In celebration of our 25th anniversary, AIRIE.Foundation presents Ancestral Currents at The Armory Show 2026 in New York—a milestone installation connecting the Caribbean and South Florida through water, memory, environment, and belonging.

Presented within Platform, curated by Jovanna Venegas, the exhibition brings together installation and film to explore water as witness, archive, and a connection across landscapes, histories, and generations.

Featuring artist and filmmaker Ania Freer, alongside AIRIE.Foundation artists and alumni Arsimmer McCoy, Cornelius Tulloch, and Kunya Rowley, Ancestral Currents reflects our 25-year commitment to supporting artists whose practices deepen how we understand, remember, and care for the environments that shape us.

AIRIE.FOUNDATION in Platform

Environments Everywhere

Continuing the fair’s collaboration with non-profits within Platform, AIRIE.Foundation pushes forward its mission, bridging conversations that began in the Everglades to “Environments Everywhere”. Ancestral Currents helps us further support alumni projects that expand dialogue and action at the intersection of art, environment, and belonging. Water as a living archive has become a constant theme as it fosters diasporic connections that transcend borders and territories creating a sense of place, lineage, and land memory.

This presentation at the Armory Show helps us amplify this work to international audiences convening in New York for this international fair and the simultaneous converging of it and Climate Week NYC. As a Foundation supporting work that centers art and environment, it is important to provide visibility to our incredible alumni artists who are pioneering conversations and action towards imagining a future of true belonging, care, and consciousness within our natural environments.

THE ARMORY SHOW

Since 1994, The Armory Show has helped open New York's fall art season, convening galleries, artists, collectors, curators, and institutions from around the world. Its 2026 edition brings approximately 230 galleries from more than 30 countries to the Javits Center, alongside focused presentations and citywide programming.

This international platform gives AIRIE.Foundation an opportunity to expand a conversation that begins in the Everglades: environmental change is not only a scientific or political question. It is also a question of culture, memory, justice, and imagination.

Works Featured in the Installation

Directed by Ania Freer, the films draw on oral histories to reclaim overlooked narratives of labor, folklore, race, and class.
Running time: 18:35 min.

Kaa-Ha-Yut-Le, Cotton Tree, Shanny, and Shango

Ania Freer

Cornelius Tulloch

Directed by Cornelius Tulloch, reimagines the histories of the Saltwater Railroad through performances by Arsimmer McCoy and Kunya Rowley; tracing migration, memory, and place.
Running time: 4:34 min.

Passages

Meet The Artists

Ania Freer is an Australian-Jamaican artist, filmmaker, cultural researcher, and curator based between New York City and Jamaica. Working in installation, film and curating, Ania uses oral histories to explore identity through themes of resistance, labour, folklore, craft traditions, race and class. Her films disrupt imperialist narratives by recentering marginalized voices and archiving lesser-known histories.

Ania’s installations have been exhibited at galleries and institutions including the National Gallery of Jamaica, AIRIE.Foundation in collaboration with Art Basel Miami Beach, and she has presented research at The MET’s Thomas J. Watson Library.

Ania Freer

Portrait by Ali Anderson.

Learn more

Cornelius Tulloch

Portrait by
Chantal Lawrie

Cornelius Tulloch is a Miami, Florida-based interdisciplinary artist and designer. With work transcending the barriers of architecture, visual art, and photography, Tulloch focuses on how creative mediums can be combined to tell powerful stories. With inspiration from his Jamaican and African American heritage, his work expresses how bodies exist between cultures, borders, and characteristics to create spatial impact.

His work has been exhibited in fairs and museums including The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington D.C., Pulse Art Fair, Miami, Florida, and the Museo Nazionale Delle Arti Del XXI Secolo, Rome, Italy.

Learn more

Arsimmer McCoy

Photo from passages (2022).

Arsimmer McCoy, is a poet, educator, creative programmer, cultural worker, performance & collaborative artist, from Richmond Heights, Fl. McCoy’s work echoes conversations about identity, self-reflection, human interaction, legacy, and grace. Ms. McCoy holds a BA in English from Florida Memorial University in Miami Gardens, Florida. McCoy’s writings delve into her experiences of growing up in Miami; exploring it’s nuances through storytelling. Arsimmer currently works as the Director of Programming for Bookleggers; a nonprofit mobile library creating programming that finds various ways for the community to gain access to books.

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Kunya Rowley

Photo from passages (2022).

A Miami native, Kunya Rowley is a community, social impact, and arts leader. He is the founder and Artistic Director of Hued Songs, a non-profit that celebrates Black culture through artistic experiences, as well as the Music Access, Arts, & Culture Manager at The Miami Foundation, leading the Foundation’s effort on making music education & the arts more accessible in Greater Miami. Kunya is a graduate from The University of Florida and is an alum of New World School of the Arts’ opera program. In 2017, Kunya was the recipient of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Knight Arts Challenge grant, which propelled the founding of Hued Songs.

Learn more

**The presentation of Ancestral Currents at The Armory Show is made possible with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.**

AIRIE.Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting artists whose work explores the deep connections between art and the environment.

Founded in 2001 and rooted in South Florida, AIRIE.Foundation has built a long-term, place-based practice around the Everglades. Through residencies and public engagement, the foundation funds and fosters creative research, dialogue, and storytelling that can reveal new narratives and possibilities for social and environmental change.

AIRIE.Foundation begins with a steadfast belief: artists are essential problem solvers. When artists are given time to observe, experiment, and work in relationship with place, they help us perceive what data alone cannot hold - lived experience, cultural memory, ambiguity, and the possibility of another future.

25 Years of Art, Environment, and Imagination

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SUPPORT

Visit: AIRIE.Foundation at The Armory Show

DATES
September 24-27, 2026

VENUE
Javits Center

ADDRESS
429 11th Avenue,
New York, NY 10001

FAIR
The Armory Show 2026

SECTION
Platfrom 2026

BUY TICKETS

HOURS

General Admission:
Friday, September 25, 11:00 am–6:00 pm
Saturday, September 26, 11:00 am–7:00 pm
Sunday, September 27, 11:00 am–6:00 pm

Armory After Hours
Friday, September 25, 7:00–9:00 pm

Last entry is always 30 minutes before close.

Accessibility
The fair is held on the Javits Center's ground level; public entrances include automatic doors and accessible restrooms are available throughout the campus. Visit the fair's accessibility page for current details.

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Artist and activist Diana Wege (@dianawegeart), founder of WOVEN (@WOVENOW), is a former collaborator with AIRIE.Foundation. In 2024, WOVEN and AIRIE.Foundation came together in Venice for Elements of Being, a presentation exploring art, environment,

AIRIE.Foundation (formerly AIRIE) is a 501c3 non-profit
EIN#26-0274623
Donations are tax deductible.

AIRIE.Foundation (formerly AIRIE) is supported in part by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation; the National Endowment for the Arts; Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council,
the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners of Miami Dade County; the Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs, the Florida Council on Arts and Culture and the State of Florida, WEGE Foundation and private donors.